Photo: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic (2006)
Sample of authors
Ellroy, James
Having revolutionized crime fiction in terms of language and style, James Ellroy is now one of America’s foremost contemporary crime writers. He was born Lee Earle Ellroy in Los Angles. His father, Armand Ellroy, was an accountant who moved in dubious Hollywood circles, for example as Rita Hayworth’s financial advisor. Ellroy’s mother, Geneva "Jean" Hilliker, was a nurse. Both parents were alcoh...
Literary figures
William Tobin
Gender: Male
A police detective in New York with a university education – he graduated from Princetown in 1918 – and the main character in three novels by Dorothy B. Hughes. William ‘Toby’ Tobin is small of stature, with a thin face. Yet he acts with considerable poise, and he speaks so sharply that the words ‘fall like hailstones’. Little is known about his private life, but he smokes heavily and does not lik...